Boy Begins Trip In Tears, Ends It Calmly

All the court fighting comes down to a sobbing 4-year-old being handed from his adoptive mother to his biological father, taking him from the only home he has known

When the world on Sunday finally got its first look at a boy it knows as "Richard," his 4-year-old face was in a grimace and his arms were gently being pulled away from the neck of the woman who had raised him.

An unremarkable home in a Schaumburg subdivision was surrounded by hundreds of people-neighbors and reporters-as the child at the center of a bitter public custody battle was handed over from the only parents he had ever known to the couple who conceived him and gave him life.

An hour after he had been driven away from his home, Richard, by then calm and even smiling, stepped out of the van at his new home in Mokena. Along the way, he had said he was hungry, and the new family stopped at McDonald's so Richard could have Chicken McNuggets.

After he was led into the apartment, his biological mother's voice carried out into the hallway. "Open the door to your room," she could be heard saying.

The heart-rending transfer of the boy Sunday was the culmination of a legal fight that wound through every level of the court system and was nearly as old as Richard. With every court filing, every delay, the boy had grown more accustomed to his home with his adoptive parents, the couple known in court documents as John and Jane Doe.

Over a few days last week, the bitter relationship between the parties broke down rapidly and completely. The two sides could not agree on even the simplest details of how the transition should be made.

On Thursday, the boy's biological father, Otakar Kirchner, made up his mind to take the child now. Kirchner, who had never met the boy he had been fighting for, gave the adoptive parents 72 hours to turn Richard over to him.

Some mental health experts had recommended a gradual transition lasting months if not years. Instead, the transfer was condensed into a single, short hour filled with tears and awkward introductions.

Believing that Kirchner might change his mind, the adoptive parents hadn't even told Richard he was leaving until Sunday morning, according to a psychiatrist who worked with both families.

Reached by telephone at his home Sunday evening, Kirchner said the boy was playing video games and already had spoken once to the Does.

"I'm happy I got my son," he said. "I want to retire from the media now. I'm very happy."

Kirchner said he and his wife have been talking to the boy and giving him toys. "Everything's perfect," he said. "He's OK."

Kirchner said the boy would be allowed to talk to and visit with the Does. "Of course-whatever he wants," Kirchner said.

Before the Kirchners arrived at the Schaumburg home of the adoptive parents Sunday afternoon, hundreds of neighbors gathered, alerted to the event after the adoptive parents' attorney invited the media to it.

As the crowd gathered, the boy's adoptive parents carried his toys to the curb. A bicycle with training wheels. A black firefighter's cap with the number "2" on it. A blue stuffed frog with dangling hind legs.

Erica Bay, a 12-year-old neighbor, sat on a curb sobbing just a few minutes before the Kirchners arrived.

"I'm so shocked," she said, "because I can't imagine what it would be like to be separated from my parents."

When the Kirchners arrived, driving down a street decorated with blue ribbons in support of the boy, the crowd jeered them. One person yelled, "Do you know what hell is?" Another called out, "You monster!"

Rev. Fred Ade, a minister at the adoptive parents' church, St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Schaumburg, emerged from the home and pleaded with the crowd to be civil.

"Please keep it calm, keep it soft," Ade said. "Richard is being served by your prayers. Keep the love. Pray hard. Today will pass as but an incident.

"Let's pray that his new home is as loving as this one," he added.

Inside, the Does began to act out the scene they had rehearsed with the psychiatrists' help, according to Bennett L. Leventhal, a psychiatrist retained by both sides but later shunned by Kirchner.

After the Kirchners entered the home, the Does, as scripted, invited them to sit down and offered them some coffee. The biological parents declined, said Leventhal, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

"The boy was brought in and introduced to them," said Leventhal, who was on the telephone with the Does throughout the day. "Because he had been previously told he would have to go, he didn't want to stay in the room."

Some time later, the two couples went with Richard to his room and played some games. Then, the Does packed up a few of his belongings and got him ready to go. He picked up a stuffed dog he called "Walter."

Sandy Daniels, a friend of the Does' who was present for part of the meeting between the Kirchners and the boy, said Kirchner explained what was happening.